A superhero for the Africa we can create

RWANDA

Gatete Nyiringabo Ruhumuliza

The New Times

It’s hard to overstate what Black Panther means to African viewers, said Gatete Nyiringabo Ruhumuliza. At theaters across the continent last week, people lined up around the block to watch the Marvel megahit about the king of the fictional African nation of Wakanda—a country that was never colonized, that is resource rich and far more technologically advanced than the rest of the world. African audiences have never seen a Western blockbuster like it. Hollywood has long cast performers with darker skin tones as villains—street thugs, drug dealers, tyrants—and when we root against these characters we root against ourselves. Once video games became popular, “the self-hate pathology was pushed even further”: Our children took pleasure in pulling the trigger on bad guys and ruffians who always shared their own skin color. Now comes Black Panther, with a proud black superhero and African characters speaking English with lilting African accents. African women, brilliant and courageous, are key to the king’s ultimate victory. No wonder Africans have flocked to cinemas, many of them dressing up for the occasion in indigenous garb. They are soaking up the vision of Wakanda, “a mighty extended society, living in the normalcy of abundance, cohesion, and power.” If our children internalize such an aspiration, Africans will know “no limits.”